Sorry if something like this has been posted before, I tried going through the search but couldn't really find anything.

Bishop is a year and a half old and has awful food allergies. When I first got him I didn't really research brands for him and just went with Purina One. He seemed to like it but his skin had a different opinion. For the past couple of months I've noticed the area around the base of his tail, his side near his legs (I guess torso), and the back of his legs have been breaking out. Sometimes there are red bumps, but mostly just dry, flaky spots and thinning hair. Poor guy is really itchy and whenever you just touch him back there he gets the biggest smile on his face.

I'm sure he has environment allergies to go along with this that we're trying to pinpoint. He also has a flea allergy, so I changed his medicine from Frontline to Advantix. Frontline never really worked.

Anyways, I was wondering if any of you could recommend food brands for me that you use for your dogs with allergies. I've been looking at Hi-Tek Naturals Grain Free and it seems like a good choice but I just wanted some opinions.

Start with a prescription diet from your veterinarian. Multiple studies have found soy contamination in the over the counter allergy diet brands. Now if you dog isn't allergic to soy, this is no big deal, but since the only thing they've looked for so far is soy, you really don't know what else might be in there too. Reading the label is NOT enough to avoid certain ingredients.

Now take heart, this is only for the first 3 months. The idea is to use a diet known to be contamination free (same independent studies found prescription diets were free of soy) for the diet trial, and you can find out just how good your dog can be. You can then use this as a baseline for choosing an over the counter food later.

When choosing a prescription diet, you want to use a protein source your pet has NEVER had before, fish, venison, egg, kangaroo, and rabbit are the major choices. You also want to avoid ALL other food items during this time. Throw away all your pets bones, flavored toys, treats, and flavored medications (you will need a topical heartworm preventative). If you mess up, and your dog gets something they shouldn't, you start over from day one. It takes months for the inflammation from food allergies to subside, and it only takes a very tiny amount of the food to start the process over again.

I have a food allergic dog, he is allergic to beef and chicken. You can PM me if you have more questions about him and what has worked well for us

OH, wanted to add that homecooking is absolutely an option as well. If you decide to home-cook long term, I'd recommend getting a veterinary nutritionist to help you balance the diet. Homecooking requires a protein source and a carbohydrate source your dog HAS NOT been exposed to before, and may require some creatitivity.

Have you considered having allergy testing done? My girl is allergic to oats,barley,peas,lamb,duck, and yeast just in her food allergies plus her environmental allergies. I just started feeding Grandma Lucy's freeze dried. I used to feed Solid Gold Wof King and she was doing great on it but since their recall it still isn't back on the market.

Thank you everyone for your suggestions. Right now I've decided to put him on Taste of the Wild's Pacific Stream kibble (since his prior foods have never had fish in it before, and these don't have poultry or grains) and I'd also like to feed him some raw as well. While giving him raw I've decided to stay away from poultry, but what about beef? Should I keep him off of that as well? Or should I just ixnay on the raw feeding and feed him only the kibble? I'm also going to buy some coconut oil to give him.

If you want to try to figure out what food he is allergic to, you should stick to one food and no other treats, raw, supplements, etc. Go back and read MissKiwi's post, she is essentially recommending an elimination diet.

I have done an abbreviated form of an elimination diet before with my dog (I did not use a prescription diet as MissKiwi suggests in her post) and she was fed only the same brand/formula of kibble (which contained only 1 meat source) for several weeks. After a period of time, I would give her one kind of treat at a time and would note any outward signs from giving the one kind of treat. My dog was NOT having flareups or serious skin issues but I knew something was causing her some mild issues. Keeping a food journal also helped.

Take into account that everything you feed your dog can be a factor so reducing the number of factors and then slowly reintroducing items one at a time can help you see how each of those items is affecting his system. It requires patience as it will take a few months for you to see results and diligence/strict control of your dog's diet is the most important thing.

mtlu wrote:I have done an abbreviated form of an elimination diet before with my dog (I did not use a prescription diet as MissKiwi suggests in her post) and she was fed only the same brand/formula of kibble (which contained only 1 meat source) for several weeks. After a period of time, I would give her one kind of treat at a time and would note any outward signs from giving the one kind of treat. My dog was NOT having flareups or serious skin issues but I knew something was causing her some mild issues. Keeping a food journal also helped.

A proper food trial is 100% restricted for 3 months. The majority of dogs will show improvement after 4 weeks, but many require 8 weeks, and a few require the full 12 weeks. Stopping any earlier will only result in confusion if your dog is one of the few that takes longer for the inflammation to subside.

When testing to determine what your pet is allergic to, choose one protein (or high protein grain) and add it to the regular diet in small amounts daily for 2 weeks. Only choose one item at a time, and allow a minimum of 2 weeks wash-out between trial foods even if your pup doesn't show any reactions to it.

I really like fish based diets for allergy dogs. The fish oils seem to really help decrease inflammation, and I fed TOTW with success for several years. Good luck with the taste of the wild, Diamond isn't exactly known for quality control, so if it doesn't work, I strongly recommend trying a prescription diet before giving up on the food allergy trial.

Thank you everyone for your help! I've been feeding Bishop a restricted diet of ONLY Taste of the Wild's salmon kibble and he is doing wonderful! It's only been about two and a half weeks since I started him on it, but he's already showing results. No more red bumps on his skin AND his fur is getting softer/healthier. I can tell he's starting to feel more comfortable and less itchy. I can't wait to see how much he will improve in the months to come

I tried all sorts of foods and almost lost her a few times to dehydration due to excessive diarrhea from food issues. Spent tons of $$$ only to have someone on another forum suggest that I print out ingredient lists of all the foods I had ever had her on... and find common denominators. Then find a food that eliminated those. And begin reIntroducing things until I found her allergies.

Verdict : ANYthing poultry (broth even!!!) And potatoes. She's been on natural balance lamb and Brown rice and now on blue buffalo lamb and Brown rice and has never been better.